"Danzo, you undying old bastard. Since you want to play, I'll play along."
Shengu Xuan stood at the window, an eerie green light swirling wildly in his eyes. With a thought, the Snake Talisman's power instantly covered his entire body.
There were no hand seals, no chakra fluctuations, not even the slightest ripple in the surrounding air. Starting at his toes, Shengu Xuan's body rapidly turned transparent, as though an invisible eraser were rubbing him out, until he vanished completely into thin air.
This invisibility was not like the low-level invisibility techniques in the ninja world, which merely used light refraction to deceive the eye. What the Snake Talisman granted was concealment on a "conceptual level"! At that moment, Shengu Xuan's body temperature, heartbeat, breathing, and even the physical space and mass his body occupied were completely erased. Even the Hyuga Clan with their Byakugan or the Inuzuka Clan with their exceptionally keen sense of smell would be utterly unable to detect his presence.
"Whoosh-" A breeze blew through the window and lifted the curtains, but the room was empty.
Deep beneath Konoha lay an enormous complex that never saw daylight-the Root Base. This was Konoha's darkest corner, perpetually steeped in a cold, damp atmosphere. Moss covered the walls on either side of the passages, and dim torches cast twisted shadows across them, like countless vicious ghosts baring their fangs and claws.
Root's defenses were extremely tight. Sensory barriers covered the perimeter; any creature carrying chakra would immediately trigger an alarm upon approaching. Inside the passages, there were not only concealed sentries but also elite Root operatives wearing various animal masks, conducting constant, overlapping patrols.
Yet before Shengu Xuan, all of this might as well not have existed.
Invisible, Shengu Xuan walked down the Root Base's dark, damp corridors with